Communications Management Plan
The success of any project is heavily reliant upon the project team members and stakeholders being thoroughly informed in a timely manner. Information such as scope, time, cost or quality changes, current project schedule status, current and projected cost data, and project decisions or issues all need to be disseminated to project members and stakeholders. In this regard, the Communications Plan will serve as a guide for communications throughout the life of the project and will be updated as communication needs change. Specifically, the Communications Plan establishes the project’s processes and requirements for the collection and distribution of project data. The following project participants, at a minimum, perform in the planning and execution of project communications: * Project Manager, Mr. Sooknanan; * Project Sponsor; * Project Communication Team; and * Project Stakeholders. The Project Manager, Mr. Sooknanan will take a proactive role in ensuring effective communications on this project. The plan also includes a Communications Matrix which will map the communication requirements of the project. This Matrix will serve as a guide for what information to communicate, who is to do the communicating, when to communicate and whom to communicate with. Communications Plan Objective Effective progress, monitoring and tracking of the project is dependent of the communication in the team. It is essential to have a communications plan that achieves the following objectives: # Inform all stakeholders on progress and status of project activities; # Engage all stakeholders early and progressively at appropriate junctures; # Report project risks and issues in order to track, mitigate and act on them; # Share forthcoming activities and assign work responsibilities; and # Collect feedback from all stakeholders to charter corrective approach if necessary. Communications Matrix The following communication matrix will applied to ensure communication is timely and appropriate: Project Change Control Process Change is inevitable in all projects, whether how big or small is the project. Controlling and managing the impact of changes is one of the greatest challenges to a project’s success. As such, the Project Manager and the project team must effectively manage these changes to ensure project success. An explicit Project Change Control Process is one mechanism which allows the Project Manager to monitor change and evaluate its impact. The Project Change Control Process describes all the processes, practices, tools, review bodies, and authority necessary to monitor and control project performance, identified change and the potential impact of change on project objectives. More often than not, change occurs to the project scope, cost and/or budget and schedule. Once the change has been identified, it will then be communicated to the Project Manager and Project Team, whose objective is to develop project change control documents and evaluate the change. The change control process is outlined below: # Any project team member, stakeholder or sponsor can identify changes in the project; # The project change control documents are developed and submitted first to the project team for evaluation and then to the Project Manager for approval; # During the evaluation the change impacts are thoroughly discussed and identified on the document. The project team clearly states the impact of change on the project with respect to time, cost, scope, quality and/or risks; # The Project Manager will review the document and discuss the change with the Project Sponsor. If the document is approved then the change is implemented. This change will be reflected in all the appropriate Project Management documents such as, project schedule, budget, WBS, risk management plan; and # If the change is rejected, the reason for this outcome is documented and no action is taken. The change control process outlines how project changes can be identified, documented, and communicated.